José Mourinho is threatening a major tactical rethink at Chelsea following their Capital One Cup defeat at Sunderland.

It was a familiar story for Chelsea as they dominated for long periods but failed to translate possession into goals before losing 2-1 after extra time.

Mourinho is considering a more pragmatic approach, with an emphasis on defence which may not sit well with the owner Roman Abramovich's desire to witness attacking flair in his side.

Mourinho said: "We are going in one direction and the right direction but it is quite frustrating. Football is about getting results and it's quite frustrating as we may have to take a step back in order to be more consistent at the back.

"It's something I don't want to do, to play more counterattacking, but I'm giving it serious thought. If I want to win 1-0 I think I can as I think it is one of the easiest things in football. It is not so difficult, as you don't give players the chance to express themselves."

Chelsea were two minutes away from victory in normal time. They led through an own goal by Lee Cattermole and wasted further chances, with Samuel Eto'o the main culprit, before Fabio Borini equalised. Ki Sung-yueng scored Sunderland's winner in the 118th minute.

Mourinho said: "We had chances and chances and chances but not enough goals. Maybe the way to rectify it is not to concede as many goals. We lose goals and the opponents come alive. We scored against Sunderland and afterwards we had two or three more chances. If we had scored then, goodbye, but we kept the opponents alive.

"Once more the quality of football we produced was amazing. What we do when we have possession of the ball, the way we play, the way we create, the story repeats. It's the same story of Stoke, of Everton and every match we've lost.

"We've never lost a match because we didn't play or because the opponent was stronger than us. We lost every match because we produce, we don't kill opponents, we give them life and every opponent that plays against us knows they can score a goal and change the true result.

"We play sometimes very well and have fantastic chances and don't score. It's the same story that repeats."

He added: "We played very well, that's the only thing I can say. The way we build and create we are not behind that team people always like to compare [his Chelsea team of 2004-2008]; we are in front in terms of the quality of our game. But football is about results, scoring goals and at this moment you see every game we don't kill, we're in trouble and sometimes we lose matches."